Thursday, September 24, 2020

Gun Rights and Breonna Taylor

I will not, cannot get embroiled in the aftermath of the Breonna Taylor killing, but I have to get my churning mind to stop so I can move on to focusing on care for my wife with Alzheimer’s and her aging father. I will not post this directly to social media but just put it in my Writing Workshop blog. If someone else’s social media post evokes a response, I may just give this link.


Though I am neither a gun owner nor gun advocate, if I understand correctly, one of the cherished arguments for keeping a firearm in the home is to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your property from intruders and attackers. Sometimes the threat is identified as an oppressive government bent on depriving you of your rights.


Again, if I understand correctly, knowing that I am getting public information and was not on the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case, police were executing a “no-knock” warrant looking for drugs and broke into the apartment with a battering ram. Awakened by the noise of intruders, her boyfriend fired a couple of shots, apparently striking only one of the officers. The police responded with a volley of gunshots that killed Breonna Taylor in her bed. No drugs were found. The grand jury did not return an indictment specific for her killing.


Was not her boyfriend exercising his Second Amendment rights that are so vigorously defended? Or do we have here yet another instance of guns kept for self-defense ending up in unintended tragedy? Or are we faced with another case of open season on Black folk? Or maybe some will suggest that she deserved to be killed for sleeping with her boyfriend. I don’t have answers, and I have nothing to say about the protests of the grand jury's action (or inaction). I regret that an officer was shot (not fatally as Breonna Taylor was) and that firearms were even present. 


There! I wrote it. Maybe now my heart can focus and be at peace.


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